“You don’t know that.”

“You’re right. I haven’t tested all of your colleagues.” Looking into the back of the classroom, Tar`ro said, “Here’s something else I know: this school’s teachers and administrators don’t relish the idea of an ex-butcher and crazy man working with their most precious student.”

“Crazy man,” Nissim repeated.

“You. You hold some peculiar ideas. Not that you bring them out and let them dance every day. You’re trying to be careful. But despite appearances, I’m not altogether stupid. Little pieces of what you call ‘thinking’ keep slipping inside my head.”

“Which pieces?”

“The Creation isn’t everything. In fact, the Creation isn’t even the first thing. People and the papio came from the same stock, which is why we can crossbreed on rare, beer-inspired occasions. And you also think our peculiar, unbreakable boy might be even more remarkable than we can guess.”

The students’ faces were pressed against the cage wall, watching the unhungry fire spider lazily pursue the frantic rodent.

Diamond’s face was in the middle, enthralled.

“What do you think the boy means?” asked Nissim.

“I don’t think. Thinking is a civilian job.”

“And you’re a soldier.”

“And soldiers believe nothing but the clear clean ideas that they’re ordered to believe.”

“You are an exceptionally fortunate fellow.”

Tar`ro shrugged, ignoring sarcasm and any personal doubts. “I believe what our Archon says: the child is leftover from the Creation. That King beast is another leftover. And there were two more creatures trapped inside the corona’s stomach. But like I was told, our boy is the one who matters. He matters because despite the differences, he is so much like us.”

“There are similarities,” Nissim agreed.

The guard put his hand to his face, pretending to find itches that needed attention. “You know, it would make this school happy to get rid of you.”

“Some people like me,” said Nissim.

“Don’t be confused, sir. You’re too smart for that. People are nice to your face, but that’s because you’re important today. And, ‘Today is always half-done,’ as they say. You don’t believe what everybody else believes. In fact, you prefer to think crazy crap, and if your rank happened to be stripped away tomorrow, your friendliest colleagues would run away rather than share your air.”

At long last, the spider was gaining momentum. The children hooted, and Nissim had more questions to ask.

But Tar`ro surprised him. “Let’s talk about stools,” he said.

“I’d like that.”

“There might be situations, special circumstances, where four legs would work better than three.”

“I can imagine that,” Nissim said.

“You can? Well, then you are a brilliant man.” Tar`ro glanced out into the hallway, making certain it was empty. And again he whispered under his scratching hand, saying, “Three people are allowed to carry guns inside this school.”

“That’s a reasonable regulation.”

“But maybe an old butcher could slip a small knife or two inside his pockets.”

“Knives aren’t worth much in a fight.”

“No? I’ve heard that you had good results with your butcher tools, one time or another.”

Nissim responded with chill silence.

Then the spider struck, and the children broke into cheers—except for the boy in the middle, who acted rather sorry to see the scurrier’s pink insides.

“You’re the science teacher,” Tar`ro said. “To me, science is a bag of magic tricks. Nothing else. But I’m guessing there’s some good trick that will let you hide something small, but something that has punch.”

Nissim sighed and looked out the long window. “You and your colleagues like to search my classroom for hazards.”

“But those are routine searches,” Tar`ro said. “And here I’m going to share one very big secret. Show us something that we can see easily. Set it in an obvious place. The most amazing things will vanish when we never stop staring at them.”

The neighboring tree was falling.

Rail was falling.

Children yelled, and adrenalin made them jump. Arms lifted, hands to the head. Simple words were repeated. “No can’t never be never no!” Screams were too loud to carry anger. This was not possible. How could this be real? But the great tree was clearly sliding downward, clearly gaining velocity, and everybody at the window realized it and their voices died away in another moment, mouths and brains struck dumb by the enormity of what couldn’t be conceived.

Desperate to watch, Diamond started toward the window.

Bits’ empty hand grabbed the boy around his neck. “Stay with me, now, stay close.”

Diamond stopped and looked over his shoulder.

The slick gray pistol filled the guard’s other hand, aimed at the empty floor but moving, drawing circles with the wide barrel.

“Stay,” Bits repeated.

In all of this, what was most striking—the odd detail that Diamond would never forget—was how the man’s face suddenly became handsome. Bits was engaged, serious and focused. This great noble work depended entirely on him, and it transformed him in the eyes of a lost child. He was the same man, but the grand nose and those scar-pitted cheeks were suddenly being drawn with a different, more supremely talented set of brushes.

Diamond leaned closer to his guard, feeling glad for nothing but the touch of that rough certain hand.

Then the Master spoke.

“I’m stupid,” Nissim said.

Diamond looked at him.

Odd beyond measure, the Master was still sitting on his chair. Rail was dying and Marduk was shaking hard, yet he remained behind his desk, glancing at the window and then at Diamond, disgusted when he said, “I’m an idiot.”

Bits tugged at the boy, pulling him a step closer to the cages.

“Stealing the boy,” Nissim said. “That’s what I assumed somebody would try.”

Bits glanced at the doorway and hallway, pulling the pistol a little closer to his side.

“But what if they wanted to kill Diamond,” Nissim said.

The boy stared at his teacher.

“Destroy him while murdering all of us too,” the Master said. “I never imagined . . . not seriously, no . . . ”

A hard sound came out of Bits. It wasn’t laughter, though it sounded like laughter. There was pain to the noise, and fury, and then he said, “Shut up.”

Marduk was being shaken hard from above, but now a second strong vibration was driving upwards from the canopy. Rail’s long branches were yanking loose from Marduk’s canopy. The twin insults met in the wood surrounding them, causing the floor to rise up and then drop again, and cages tried to leap off their stands, and the biggest tank of rainwater sloshed and then pitched sideways, shattering against the floor as the room tilted sharply towards the open window.

Bits managed one quick glance at everything, and then his eyes turned to the open door.

“To kill one child,” the Master called out. “Why all this?”

Bits opened his mouth and stopped his voice.

The floor rolled and Nissim remained seated. Both of his hands were under the desk, arms moving as if the fingers were very busy. That coral bowl with its favorite pens had slid up to the desk’s edge, and Diamond suffered the odd urge to run over and rescue the bowl before it fell.

Then he realized what was missing from the desk.

The chrysalis was. Maybe it fell and rolled where he couldn’t see it, and that made him weirdly sorry. He liked that rich green sack full of salted juices and the half-finished fly, huge wings folded down, black in appearance because the colors were piled on top of each other, and if countless other things hadn’t been happening during those few breaths, Diamond might have asked the Master where the ornament went.

“Just kill him and be done with it,” Nissim said.

Peculiar, disturbing words.

“Cut off the head and throw everything back to the coronas,” said the Master. “But why murder thousands along with him?”